Unlock your Disney Resort Room with your Smartphone

Disney is always updating their technology, and their most recent update will allow you to access your Disney Resort Hotel room with your MyDisneyExperience app on your smartphone.

Currently, there are a couple ways to access hotel rooms including a Key to the Kingdom card, which is a typical plastic hotel room key, and with your MagicBand. You hold either of these on a pad on the door and they unlock your door.

Soon, you’ll be able to opt in and activate the digital room key feature on the app on the day of check-in. You can do this remotely, so you can still bypass the front desk if you use online check-in.

To use the Digital Key feature, which will first roll out at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge, simply open the MyDisneyExperince app, tap the “Unlock Door” button, and hold the phone against the pad on the door. The door will unlock, and you can turn the handle and access your room.

The Digital Key feature can also be used to unlock the hotel entrance gate for those driving in, pools, fitness centers, elevators, and club level lounges. This feature will, presumably, be more secure than a MagicBand, which can easily be used by anyone to enter your room. As long as your phone has some kind of personal lock, like your fingerprint or a code, only you can use the Digital Key to access these areas.

Disney’s Wilderness Lodge will be the first Disney Resort Hotel to try out the new Digital Key Feature on the MyDisneyExperience app.

MyDisneyExperinece also allows guests to order food, use the FastPass+ system, an view your PhotoPass Photos. While these features don’t require Bluetooth, the Digital Key option does. You also have to have the most updated version of MyDisneyExperience.

There’s currently no date for rolling out this service at other Disney resort hotels, but even when it does, you can still continue to use your MagicBands or use both interchangeably. MagicBands will also still be required to enter the parks, use the FP+ system, and apply purchases to your room charge.

Herb is the founder, author, webmaster, chief executive, and chief bottle washer for World Of Walt – and he is the Disney enthusiast who put this site together. Ever since his parents took him to the Magic Kingdom on a family vacation as a youngster, he has had an interest in the magic that Disney creates for families.